In her novel The Awakening, Kate Chopin is an artist who paints a picture for the reader with every word:”The sun was low in the west, and the breeze was soft and languorous that came up from the south, charged with the seductive odor of the sea.” (12) The inclusion of such alluring and dramatic images allows the reader to see, hear, feel, smell, and live in the scene which she creates. Chopin writes to awaken the senses, and her style is one of beauty and uniqueness. As if stroking a brush across a canvas, or playing a chord on the piano, Chopin’s use of expressive, descriptive, and poignant writing is evident throughout the novel, thus adding to its overall effect.
Chopin incorporates a number of images and emotional phrases which reflect the beauty of her writing. A recurring image throughout the novel is that of the sea: “The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude, to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.” (13) Chopin gives us the ability to feel the sentiments of her characters as they wander along the shore. We can hear the soft crashes of the waves and smell the sweet, cool odor of the sea. Chopin allows us to feel the warmth and serenity that Edna feels towards the ocean. The sea is a place of comfort and contentment for Edna. Chopin uses adjectives such as “seductive” and “whispering” to illustrate this. Compelling lines such as the aforementioned are not lacking within the work. In each chapter Chopin writes with a flowing, descriptive style that…
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…isabled down, down to the water.” (115) As the novel closes the reader will learn how Edna’s life and death compares to the bird. The last paragraphs of the novel end with the aura of contentment that was evident throughout the novel, without the inclusion of any harsh images. Chopin stimulates the senses one final time within the last line of the work: “There was the hum of bees, and the musky odor of pinks filled the air.” (116)
Chopin writes a novel of poetic form and beauty in The Awakening. She eloquently describes each character, location, and situation, allowing the images to come to life in the reader’s mind. The emotions of Edna, as well as other characters, are felt through the poignant phrases and dramatic images which Chopin conveys. The constant inclusion of heavy description and poetic form makes The Awakening a very effective piece of writing
The Motivation of Lester in Child of God
The Motivation of Lester in Child of God
In the novel, Child of God. Lester Ballard committed heinous crimes against innocent victims. He murdered people in cold-blooded fashion and raped women when they were dead. What makes a human being do this may tell us a lot about criminals and humans themselves. In this paper I will try and analyze some of the core issues that lie at the heart of this story. Why did Ballard do what he did, to what extent is he responsible and what should have been his punishment.
From birth, Lester Ballard seemed to have been cursed with misfortune. His mother had run away from home when he was an infant and his father hung himself when he was about nine or ten years old. Lester actually had to see his father hanging from the ceiling. That would leave a permanent scar on any child, including Ballard, as the author notes, “They say he never was right after his daddy killed hisself.” (21) From then on, Ballard seems to have gone where life took him. What he suffered from was a total lack of awareness. Ballard was a well before he understood what that word meant and he never learned the concept in his entire life. He did not know what things meant, did not even know what happened. Every signal he got from the outside community was telling him that he did not belong there, that he was not accepted. Even when Ballard enters a church service, a setting where people are accepted and loved, he was rejected for who he was. People spoke about him in whispers, “A windy ruffle of whispers went among them.” (31). His community, through rejection victimized Ballard. Rejection may well be the most potent form of victimization since it cuts off the air to out most cherished need of connection and love.
Connecting Ballard’s background and childhood to his crimes is a difficult task. Other than his parents, we are not told too much about what else he went through when he was a child. From the bizarre nature of his crimes, he seems to have to have been through intense suffering and agony. A lot of his crimes were committed against women. He raped women, but only after killing them. A living woman might have been too much for Ballard to handle; the risk of rejection would have been too great for him.